Another Fire
by Radioactive Nerd
Summary: Just another account of one of Hill Valley's famous fires. Based on Back to the Future: the Game.


**Disclaimer: **_**Back to the Future **_**is owned by Universal Studios. All commercially published material with that title belongs to Universal Studios of California. Recognizable characters were created by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis. The creative liberties employed into the new video game were taken by Andy Hartzell and Mike Stemmle, under the supervision of Bob Gale. Certain quotes are from Episode 2 of the game and all three parts of the trilogy. **

**Second Disclaimer: The "canonicity" of the 2010 video game for **_**Back to the Future **_**is up for grabs. Its authenticity is very convincing, but you can believe what you want to believe and I'll believe what I want to believe.**

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><p>Hill Valley, California<p>

August 25, 1931

11:41 PM

"Okay, I better get back to fixing history."

"Be careful, Marty."

After the door closed on the period-correct clothing of his friend in time, Dr. Emmett Brown failed to drudge up an instance when traveling through time had been executed otherwise without flaw. The universe, in an action completely unfathomable to him, held its continuum strands together with each disastrous alternate reality. Some were created by Marty McFly. Some were created by him. Some were planned and most were accidental; actually accidental added up to 97% of the ventures.

Erase your paternal and maternal genetic contributors and you receive an alternate reality for your unintentional efforts. Give a twenty-first century sports almanac to a twentieth century adolescent Neanderthal and you receive an alternate reality. Spend twenty years of your life before you were given life with a dead woman raising two boys who should have never existed in the first place? The best alternate tangent of all.

The mathematic and mechanical aspects of the first time machine were easier to take into account than the emotional, physical, or temptation probabilities. At the time of the conception of the invention, he figured, "What the Hell?" He'd worry about it later. And later had come with a boy from the future, scared shitless, and wearing a life preserver.

"_Look at my birthday for crying out loud, I haven't even been born yet!" _

"_And look at this picture- my brother, my sister, and me- look at her sweatshirt, Doc. Class of '84." _

"_The bruise! The bruise on your head! I know how that happened! You told me the whole story…" _

"_I came here in a time machine that you invented. Now, I need your help to get back to the year 1985." _

One of his favorites…

"_Whoa, wait a minute, Doc… are trying to tell me that my mother has got the hots for me?" _

Doc shook his head as he pushed open the curtain. From this poorhouse vantage point, he could see Marty walk the long way around town square, perhaps deliberately avoiding his younger self's makeshift control booth and Miss Edna Strickland's own booth of societal control. Actually, there was very little probability of a _perhaps_. Marty disappeared around the corner just as Doc let the curtain fall back into place. Dextral devices crossed, Marty would discover why Miss Trotter held her tongue. Why must there always be a problem? Why must there always be a mystery?

On the illuminative side, piecing together temporal conundrums resulted in an unusual thrill to the nervous system. The thrill rushed through his extremities firstly with the absent head of Dave McFly and the notion that a life dedicated to inventing was worth a damn. The finding of a certain cane on the floor mat of a certain car and the hunt for periodical proof of hypothesis rushed doubly so. Although, the Polaroid of a future grave marker produced more psychological chill than thrill. Why is my brother's head disappearing? What the Hell happened to everything? What about the tombstone? Who lit that match and got away scot-free? Usually the thrill came at completely inappropriate times.

Clara warned him such a trip sounded unwise and banned the boys from tagging along. She was right. He just couldn't help himself. The mystery went down in Hill Valley history, filed next to the equal fiery destruction of his own ancestral home and (via meddling revisions) Old Man Peabody's close encounter. The trip ranked #47 on his list of personal temporal interests. The time circuits were set to May 27, 1931 and…

The combustion from the alcohol interloping with the flames made itself clear with a shower of bricks, one of which struck him. He knew that and owned evidence of it. There was something off about how it struck him… an improbable detail… he clearly recalled stationing himself and Einy behind the park's wall at 10:00 PM _exactly_. By the time of the actual explosion (11:03 PM) the debris, smoke, and noise distorted his directorial senses. He barely made it over the wall, let alone see what was in front… or in back of him… Great Scott, wait! He _did_ make his way over to the speakeasy after the blast and then…

"_Mr_. Brown! Would you please quit trespassing for one moment and get your laboratory beast away from my pamphlets!"

Miss Strickland's shrill demand penetrated both the window of the rented room and the memory cells he was trying to resurface. Einstein! Of course!

"_Einstein! Heel boy!" _

_At 11:05 PM, Einy ran after a sound only a canine could hear over the uproar of crashing bricks and crackling timbers, barking all the way. _

"_Woof! Woof!" _

_The sound of a body hitting concrete… _

"_Oomph!" _

At 11:07 PM, after almost inducing a heart attack, Einstein reappeared out of the smoke and flames and raced past him with an object clenched in his dental apex. He remembered calling out to Einy again, but if there was one thing that dog hated more than heights and the boys' early days of roughhousing, it was fire. From Marty's testimony, Einy ran back to the DeLorean with the potential clue that became a clue for another mystery. A clue for Marty…

"_I found one of Edna Strickland's shoes in the DeLorean." _

The bludgeon to his skull must have occurred roughly at 11:09 PM, perhaps 11:10... Smoke had thickened since the fire had eaten away most of the building, making Hill Valley as distinguishable as… the brick hit there. Had he been facing the fire? Doc reached up and felt the bump that still hadn't quite healed. If his perspective fronted in the direction of the fire… the welt… and there happened to be no chance of a gravitational shift causing the collision with cranium… the explosion was personally clocked at 11:03 PM… the brick at 11:09 or 11:10...

At 11:09 or 11:10 and twenty seconds, he fell to his knees and saw someone else's tibiofemoral components… and zero space in between components… could not even see the components… How could the arsonist succeed in feigning stoic as whatever authorities demanded an alibi? Difficulty lacked association with screaming, "Help! Police! I've found the arsonist!" It did not take natural petrifaction to stand on the bylines… sidelines… bylines…

The dirty sheets of the mattress met his back as he fell onto them from trying to snatch the clipping out of his crowded pockets. Rolling over on the bed, Doc brought the clipping under the lousy light.

SPEAKEASY BLAZED TO A HALT

_By Edna Strickland, May 28, 1931_

_Fiery justice otherwise alien to Hill Valley was ignited last night upon our very own illegal gin establishment. At precisely 11:03 PM, late night law clerks and citizens in their respective beds were awakened to find that the scapegoat of the hard times we know as the Depression was no more. By midnight, officials flocked to the scene much too late to recognize it for the lawless form it once stood as, blocking citizens away from the crime scene much too late. One could suggest a bit of poetic tragedy but this reporter shall say nothing further. _

"I surmise that's just what you did…" Doc muttered to only the clipping and the ripped wallpaper. The rest of the vocal musing ended when the door opened and he stuffed the yellowed news clipping back into his pocket.

"Hey, Doc, we gotta talk."

Mysteries that waited cold for decades needed just a few more minutes. "What's the problem, Marty?"


End file.
